Google Helps in Tracking the Spread of Flu
According to a recent story by The New York Times, Google is using it’s web search trends to track the spread of Flu in United States. Common symptoms of the flu are sore throat, head ache, cough and fever and according to Googlers people under such circumstances are more likely to search for information on sore throat, cough drops and flu medicine.
- Source: nytimes.com
Google has spent about an year to dig into it’s database to analyse search trends over flu and have come up with a way of tracking spread of flu 10-14 days faster than the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Following the research Google has launched Flu Trends to help people in United States to know about the break out of Flu in their state. Now this is what I consider a perfect example of Technology for Society. Such innovative ideas could help in surveillance and warning for so many other diseases and epidemics.
Just imagine that we could subscribe to health alerts from Google – the world will be such a safe place. The health alerts would also mean a new revenue stream for Google where it could provide a perfect platform for Pharmacies and may be doctors to advertise.
Yahoo Search Marketing is Expensive than Google Adwords
It’s been around 6 months since Yahoo launched their new Panama-based Search Marketing Platform and things have changed for them, thanks to the new Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM) platform (formerly Overture-based).
YSM is no longer out of the consideration set of search marketers because it now features better reporting, tracking, targeted ad delivery and a lot more control over your campaigns. Although it is not thought to be as good as Google Adwords but it is a good alternative to reach out to an extra bit of audience. The days when YSM used Overture’s serving technology advertisers used it as a cheaper alternative. That is not the case anymore because YSM will now cost you almost the same or more than Adwords.
YSM takes the Revenue Route
Yahoo! has now resorted to a new pricing structure wherein they have a fixed minimum bid price for high traffic keywords. The minimum bid price on Adwords is determined by the amount of competition. High traffic keywords are ought to attract more competition and higher bids due to the ever ongoing bid war.
So if you want to get traffic from Yahoo then you better be including those highly searched keywords as well and since most of the clicks would come from those expensive keywords your average CPC will shoot up. This has somehow caused the CPC’s of my YSM campaigns to exceed that on Adwords. FYI, I use the exact replica of my Adwords campaigns on YSM!
How to get lower CPC’s on YSM?
1. Add more keywords and try keyword combinations. You can use both the keyword tools from Adwords and YSM.
2. Go for better performing ad copies. This will result in higher CTR’s and better Quality Index (analogous to Adwords’ quality sScore. On YSM quality index is calculated at ad copy level but on Adwords its calculated at keyword level). Better the quality index the lesser you’ll pay for higher positions and the clicks will be cheaper.
3. Use only related keywords in an ad group. Try and demarkate keyword sets by creating different ad groups and different ad copies for every ad group. So focus on quality of ads and the relevance of those ads for their ad group.
Yahoo! Inc. might have found a way to generate some more revenue by resorting to a fixed minimum pricing model but what they should be working on is increasing their search volumes. By the way they are doing an aggressive campaign in India to promote their new SERP format – Glue Page which contains all information on a topic glued to one single page.
Body Language Tips for an Interview
It is said that the state of your body, postures and hand gestures can tell a lot about your personality and communicate your thoughts. Employers abide to this as a hard rule while judging candidates for a job. Most employers have had made an opinion about a candidate in first 10-15 minutes or so. That is because only 15% of our communication is through words and the rest happens automatically through our eyebrow movement, hand gestures, our posture and what not. This silent form of wordless communication is known as body language.
What we communicate through body language at times happens without an enforced effort on out part. It just happens on it’s own. For instance you won’t believe someone who just said, “I am happy” with a long face and slagging shoulders – you would know its not the case. The other person wanted you to believe he was happy by saying so but you came to know the truth by what he communicated through his body language.
In a similar way you are adjudged based on your body language. So, how to present yourself for an interview?
1. Be humble and confident
Before anything else greet the interviewer with a smile and a firm handshake with proper eye contact. This
shows respect and interest and also your confidence and self esteem. You greeting the interviewer should not look like flattery. There is a noticeable difference between flattery and that you appreciate the opportunity.
Try and maintain a polite smile through out your conversation – that’ll help the interviewer in easing out with you and as a common practice, interviewers also maintain a smile to make you comfortable.
2. Do not explode with energy
Being energetic is good but while dealing with interview questions in an energetic manner send out a wrong signal. The more energy you’ll have the more strong your hand gestures become and your voice tone becomes fidgety.
Try and stay calm and take every question as an opportunity to sell yourself better. There is no point to be made to the interviewer by being aggressive; he’s only looking for a cool person to have in his team who would be calm and enjoyable to work with for other team members too.
3. Hand and arm gestures
Avoid touching your neck, ears, cheeks or eyes during the interview. The other person might think you are concealing something or lying about something. This assumption is based on a theory used by Lie Detecting Specialists and Interrogators that a lying person tries to avoid eye contact and tries to get shelter by covering his face with hands or touching organs near the face time to time.
Crossed arms or joined hands signal that you are shut and not willing to be receptive. To rise forward as an open minded person, keep your arms uncrossed and hands open with palms facing the table. And when hands on table avoid tapping your fingers while speaking – this often signals dilemma or dubious thoughts. Being dubious within yourself is not going to show you as a trustworthy person.
4. Do not cross your legs
This according to some body language experts creates a barrier in front of the other person. Show that you are friendly and unguarded.
5. Sitting Posture
Sitting in a posture with erect back shows your interest and attentiveness in the ongoing activity. Do not slouch or slag your shoulders. Broaden your shoulders and sit straight but don’t overdo it! 
Overdoing it would show that you’re over confident or nervous or conscious about something.
Do’s and Dont’s in 4 C’s
Be cool, calm, confident and cheerful during an interview.
Never be cheesy, crossed, closed or cunning.
That’s all, enjoy the curry!
UserNameCheck.com – is your favourite username available?
I found a useful website today – UserNameCheck.com, it lets you check if your favourite username is available across popular websites. If you are that kind of a person who loves to retain his username or login ID across all websites then this is one such service you should be using. The site’s functionality has been developed using Dojo as it does all the checks using Ajax and it only takes a few seconds for every website to retrieve the availability status.
Book your most desired username on popular websites today. Even if you don’t use some of them you might want to use them in future. And trust me, then you won’t want to see “this username is already taken“.
UserNameCheck supports an availability check for around 70 popular websites. Some of them are really worth having your username on:
I wish they could have more features like a Username Popularity Meter and a Username Storage. Also, if they could release widgets or an API for other third party websites/blogs to use their service.
The website is a great utility but I don’t quite get their business model. How will they turn this into a minting machine? I don’t think they’ve even thought about it till now!
I’ll get in touch with these guys for a vivid insight into their game plan.
Until then enjoy this curry as you surf aroud checking your username availability.
Yahoo is a big fish with eyes closed!
Earlier today, I was having a discussion with a friend about Yahoo’s new Search Marketing Platform and in course of the talks a strange thought struck my mind.
The discussion went something like this:
Me: Yahoo’s search advertising business is no where close to that of Google and that scenario looks less likely to change for next 5 years or so.
My Friend: Yes, because Google has more than 70% share of the searches that happen on the Internet. And then Google’s ad serving technology is also more intelligent. Google Adsense publishers also out number those of the YPN.
Me: But isn’t Yahoo is the biggest portal on the Internet with most number of daily visitors.
So why doesn’t Yahoo open it’s own inventory for it’s Search Marketing platform?
After having said this I realised that the thought isn’t a bad idea at all.
Yahoo has spent good money in building it’s do-it-yourself ad serving technology very similar to that of Google Adwords. No doubt Yahoo gets way lesser number of searches everyday and their search ads revenue would never be as high as Google’s. But, if they could put some more effort in optimising their ad technology to serve contextual targeted ads on Yahoo.com, Yahoo regional portals and online services in their sub-network then they could actually earn a lot more revenue than what they earn from the existing system.
Currently Yahoo’s portal inventory is monetised by ad sales and to do that they require a huge sales force and support staff to draw advertisers, placing ads, furnishing ad slots etc. I don’t understand why can’t they include their own inventory in their own marketing platform!
Does it not make sense? A self serve technology that will enable advertisers to select keywords or topics and then bid for millions of ad slots on Yahoo’s portal inventory. What’s stopping them?
I think the pressure generated by competition in search business has made this big fish close its eyes who can’t see this worm. And then search was never their business; information portal was!
Spicy Curry! Digg it
